March 11, 2008

The Rockets Imitate Deke: When the Houston Rockets aren't busy working on their 19-game winning streak, they're working on their impersonations of teammate Dikembe Mutombo. Of course, nothing beats the real thing.

Perhaps Dikembe's teammates could imitate his actions as well as his voice and mannerisms. In 1997, Mutombo with the Mutombo Foundation began plans to open a $29 million, 300-bed hospital on the outskirts of his hometown, the Congolese capital of Kinshasa. Ground was broken in 2001, but construction didn't start until 2004, as Mutombo had trouble getting donations early on, although Mutombo personally donated $3.5 million toward the hospital's construction. Initially Mutombo had some other difficulties, almost losing the land to the government because it was not being used, and having to pay refugees who had begun farming the land to leave. He also struggled to reassure some that he did not have any ulterior or political motives for the project. However, the project has been on the whole very well received at all social and economic levels in Kinshasa. On August 14, 2006, Dikembe donated $15 million to the completion of the hospital for its ceremonial opening on September 2, 2006. The hospital was by then named Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named for his late mother, who died of a stroke in 1997. When it opened in February 2007, the $29 million facility became the first modern medical facility to be built in that area in nearly 40 years. His hospital is on a 12-acre site on the outskirts of Kinshasa in Masina, where about a quarter of the city's 7.5 million residents live in poverty. The hospital has full telemedicine capabilities with the United States and Europe through the network established by Medical Missions for Children. *lifted straight from Wikipedia